Bruno Fernandes has turned down Manchester United’s second offer, and the club is expected to take up his extra year
Manchester United’s captain is still not happy with the terms, and with his contract in its final season, the club is likely to trigger a one-year option before 1 January.
Nov 14, 2026
The captain’s contract will be waiting for Mauricio Pochettino when he arrives. Bruno Fernandes has rejected a second offer from Manchester United, BBC Sport reported on Friday, a day after the club sacked Michael Carrick. According to The Athletic, the second proposal was an improvement on the first, but Fernandes is still not satisfied, with salary and the length of the deal the main sticking points.
ESPN’s sources describe United as relaxed and still confident of an agreement.
Why 1 January matters
Fernandes’ current deal runs to the end of this season, in June 2027. United hold an option to add a 12-month extension to June 2028, and the BBC reports that if there is no new agreement, the club is almost certain to trigger it before 1 January.
The timing is the point. Without that extension, Fernandes would enter the last six months of his contract in January and would be free to agree a pre-contract with a club outside England. Triggering the option shuts that door for now, and it buys United time without committing them to a long, expensive deal for a 32-year-old.
That is where the two sides split. Fernandes had the best season of his United career in 2025-26. He broke the Premier League record for assists in a season and was named the league’s Player of the Season, PFA Players’ Player of the Year and FWA Footballer of the Year. It is hard to argue with a player asking to be paid on that.
This season has been different. United are 18th with one league win in ten, and Carrick even left Fernandes on the bench for the 3-0 home defeat by Bournemouth in October. The club is also trying to cut its wage bill, and a long, top-end contract for a player in his thirties is the kind of deal it wants to avoid.
The Pochettino link
Pochettino is the one man in this who might change the mood. He wanted to sign Fernandes for Tottenham in 2019, but Sporting would not sell, and the midfielder joined United from them in January 2020 instead. His first game in charge is expected to be Liverpool at Anfield on 22 November.
Fernandes has already turned down one way out. In the summer of 2025 he rejected a big-money offer from Saudi club Al-Hilal to stay at Old Trafford. That suggests he wants to stay at the top level in Europe, and United are the obvious place to do it, but only if the club looks like it is going somewhere.
So both sides are waiting on the same thing. Fernandes wants to see what Pochettino does with this squad, and United want to see whether last season’s Fernandes is still in there. The 12-month option lets both of them wait a little longer.